Climbing and Walking Robots

With the advancement of technology, new exciting approaches enable us to render mobile robotic systems more versatile, robust and cost-efficient. Some researchers combine climbing and walking techniques with a modular approach, a reconfigurable approach, or a swarm approach to realize novel prototypes as flexible mobile robotic platforms featuring all necessary locomotion capabilities. The purpose of this book is to provide an overview of the latest wide-range achievements in climbing and walking robotic technology to researchers, scientists, and engineers throughout the world. Different aspects including control simulation, locomotion realization, methodology, and system integration are presented from the scientific and from the technical point of view. This book consists of two main parts, one dealing with walking robots, the second with climbing robots. The content is also grouped by theoretical research and applicative realization. Every chapter offers a considerable amount of interesting and useful information

Virtual articulation and kinematic abstraction in robotics

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, 2009.Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.Includes bibliographical references (p. 279-292).This thesis presents the theory, implementation, novel applications, and experimental validation of a general-purpose framework for applying virtual modifications to an articulated robot, or virtual articulations. These can homogenize various aspects of a robot and its task environment into a single unified model which is both qualitatively high-level and quantitatively functional. This is the first framework designed specifically for the mixed real/virtual case. It supports arbitrary topology spatial kinematics, a broad catalog of joints, on-line structure changes, interactive kinostatic simulation, and novel kinematic abstractions, where complex subsystems are simplified with virtual replacements in both space and time. Decomposition algorithms, including a novel method of hierarchical subdivision, enable scaling to large closed-chain mechanisms with 100s of joints. Novel applications are presented in two areas of current interest: operating high- DoF kinematic manipulation and inspection tasks, and analyzing reliable kinostatic locomotion strategies based on compliance and proprioception. In both areas virtual articulations homogeneously model the robot and its task environment, and abstractions structure complex models. For high-DoF operations the operator attaches virtual joints as a novel interface metaphor to define task motion and to constrain coordinated motion (by virtually closing kinematic chains); virtual links can represent task frames or serve as intermediate connections for virtual joints. For compliant locomotion, virtual articulations model relevant compliances and uncertainties, and temporal abstractions model contact state evolution.(cont.) Results are presented for experiments with two separate robotic systems in each area. For high-DoF operations, NASA/JPL's 36 DoF ATHLETE performs previously challenging coordinated manipulation/inspection moves, and a novel large-scale (100s of joints) simulated modular robot is conveniently operated using spatial abstractions. For compliant locomotion, two experiments are analyzed that each achieve high reliability in uncertain tasks using only compliance and proprioception: a novel vertical structure climbing robot that is 99.8% reliable in over 1000 motions, and a mini-humanoid that steps up an uncertain height with 90% reliability in 80 trials. In both cases virtual articulation models capture the essence of compliant/proprioceptive strategies at a higher level than basic physics, and enable quantitative analyses of the limits of tolerable uncertainty that compare well to experiment.by Marsette Arthur Vona, III.Ph.D

Contemporary Robotics

This book book is a collection of 18 chapters written by internationally recognized experts and well-known professionals of the field. Chapters contribute to diverse facets of contemporary robotics and autonomous systems. The volume is organized in four thematic parts according to the main subjects, regarding the recent advances in the contemporary robotics. The first thematic topics of the book are devoted to the theoretical issues. This includes development of algorithms for automatic trajectory generation using redudancy resolution scheme, intelligent algorithms for robotic grasping, modelling approach for reactive mode handling of flexible manufacturing and design of an advanced controller for robot manipulators. The second part of the book deals with different aspects of robot calibration and sensing. This includes a geometric and treshold calibration of a multiple robotic line-vision system, robot-based inline 2D/3D quality monitoring using picture-giving and laser triangulation, and a study on prospective polymer composite materials for flexible tactile sensors. The third part addresses issues of mobile robots and multi-agent systems, including SLAM of mobile robots based on fusion of odometry and visual data, configuration of a localization system by a team of mobile robots, development of generic real-time motion controller for differential mobile robots, control of fuel cells of mobile robots, modelling of omni-directional wheeled-based robots, building of hunter- hybrid tracking environment, as well as design of a cooperative control in distributed population-based multi-agent approach. The fourth part presents recent approaches and results in humanoid and bioinspirative robotics. It deals with design of adaptive control of anthropomorphic biped gait, building of dynamic-based simulation for humanoid robot walking, building controller for perceptual motor control dynamics of humans and biomimetic approach to control mechatronic structure using smart materials

Climbing and Walking Robots

Nowadays robotics is one of the most dynamic fields of scientific researches. The shift of robotics researches from manufacturing to services applications is clear. During the last decades interest in studying climbing and walking robots has been increased. This increasing interest has been in many areas that most important ones of them are: mechanics, electronics, medical engineering, cybernetics, controls, and computers. Today’s climbing and walking robots are a combination of manipulative, perceptive, communicative, and cognitive abilities and they are capable of performing many tasks in industrial and non- industrial environments. Surveillance, planetary exploration, emergence rescue operations, reconnaissance, petrochemical applications, construction, entertainment, personal services, intervention in severe environments, transportation, medical and etc are some applications from a very diverse application fields of climbing and walking robots. By great progress in this area of robotics it is anticipated that next generation climbing and walking robots will enhance lives and will change the way the human works, thinks and makes decisions. This book presents the state of the art achievments, recent developments, applications and future challenges of climbing and walking robots. These are presented in 24 chapters by authors throughtot the world The book serves as a reference especially for the researchers who are interested in mobile robots. It also is useful for industrial engineers and graduate students in advanced study

Advanced Strategies for Robot Manipulators

Amongst the robotic systems, robot manipulators have proven themselves to be of increasing importance and are widely adopted to substitute for human in repetitive and/or hazardous tasks. Modern manipulators are designed complicatedly and need to do more precise, crucial and critical tasks. So, the simple traditional control methods cannot be efficient, and advanced control strategies with considering special constraints are needed to establish. In spite of the fact that groundbreaking researches have been carried out in this realm until now, there are still many novel aspects which have to be explored

Motion Primitives and Planning for Robots with Closed Chain Systems and Changing Topologies

When operating in human environments, a robot should use predictable motions that allow humans to trust and anticipate its behavior. Heuristic search-based planning offers predictable motions and guarantees on completeness and sub-optimality of solutions. While search-based planning on motion primitive-based (lattice-based) graphs has been used extensively in navigation, application to high-dimensional state-spaces has, until recently, been thought impractical. This dissertation presents methods we have developed for applying these graphs to mobile manipulation, specifically for systems which contain closed chains. The formation of closed chains in tasks that involve contacts with the environment may reduce the number of available degrees-of-freedom but adds complexity in terms of constraints in the high-dimensional state-space. We exploit the dimensionality reduction inherent in closed kinematic chains to get efficient search-based planning. Our planner handles changing topologies (switching between open and closed-chains) in a single plan, including what transitions to include and when to include them. Thus, we can leverage existing results for search-based planning for open chains, combining open and closed chain manipulation planning into one framework. Proofs regarding the framework are introduced for the application to graph-search and its theoretical guarantees of optimality. The dimensionality-reduction is done in a manner that enables finding optimal solutions to low-dimensional problems which map to correspondingly optimal full-dimensional solutions. We apply this framework to planning for opening and navigating through non-spring and spring-loaded doors using a Willow Garage PR2. The framework motivates our approaches to the Atlas humanoid robot from Boston Dynamics for both stationary manipulation and quasi-static walking, as a closed chain is formed when both feet are on the ground

Passivity-Based adaptive bilateral teleoperation control for uncertain manipulators without jerk measurements

In this work, we consider the bilateral teleoperation problem of cooperative robotic systems in a Single-Master Multi-Slave (SM/MS) configuration, which is able to perform load transportation tasks in the presence of parametric uncertainty in the robot kinematic and dynamic models. The teleoperation architecture is based on the two-layer approach placed in a hierarchical structure, whose top and bottom layers are responsible for ensuring the transparency and stability properties respectively. The load transportation problem is tackled by using the formation control approach wherein the desired translational velocity and interaction force are provided to the master robot by the user, while the object is manipulated with a bounded constant force by the slave robots. Firstly, we develop an adaptive kinematic-based control scheme based on a composite adaptation law to solve the cooperative control problem for robots with uncertain kinematics. Secondly, the dynamic adaptive control for cooperative robots is implemented by means of a cascade control strategy, which does not require the measurement of the time derivative of force (which requires jerk measurements). The combination of the Lyapunov stability theory and the passivity formalism are used to establish the stability and convergence property of the closed-loop control system. Simulations and experimental results illustrate the performance and feasibility of the proposed control scheme.No presente trabalho, considera-se o problema de teleoperação bilateral de um sistema robótico cooperativo do tipo single-master e multiple-slaves (SM/MS) capaz de realizar tarefas de transporte de carga na presença de incertezas paramétricas no modelo cinemático e dinâmico dos robôs. A arquitetura de teleoperação está baseada na abordagem de duas camadas em estrutura hierárquica, onde as camadas superior e inferior são responsáveis por assegurar as propriedades de transparência e estabilidade respectivamente. O problema de transporte de carga é formulado usando a abordagem de controle de formação onde a velocidade de translação desejada e a força de interação são fornecidas ao robô mestre pelo operador, enquanto o objeto é manipulado pelos robôs escravos com uma força constante limitada. Primeiramente, desenvolve-se um esquema de controle adaptativo cinemático baseado em uma lei de adaptação composta para solucionar o problema de controle cooperativo de robôs com cinemática incerta. Em seguida, o controle adaptativo dinâmico de robôs cooperativos é implementado por meio de uma estratégia de controle em cascata, que não requer a medição da derivada da força (o qual requer a derivada da aceleração ou jerk). A teoria de estabilidade de Lyapunov e o formalismo de passividade são usados para estabelecer as propriedades de estabilidade e a convergência do sistema de controle em malha-fechada. Resultados de simulações numéricas ilustram o desempenho e viabilidade da estratégia de controle proposta